Glob. Materials Techs., Inc. v. Dazheng Metal Fibre Co. Ltd., No. 12 CV 1851, 2016 WL 4765689 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 13, 2016)

Key Insight: Where the court concluded that Defendants deliberately failed to preserve evidence ?in order to prevent [Plaintiff] from obtaining the evidence and using it against defendants in litigation? (e.g., by liquidating computers and delaying accessing an email account until emails were deleted by the provider) and lied to the court and to the plaintiff (?Defendants were not merely dilatory or misleading in their litigation tactics; they were affirmatively deceitful?), the court reasoned that while an adverse inference or prohibition on introducing certain evidence may ?level the playing field? it would not sufficiently punish Defendants for their dishonesty, and therefore imposed default judgment as to liability (damages remained to be proven); court?s analysis noted that under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(e)(2) a specific finding of prejudice is not required where the finding of intent supports the inference that the missing information was unfavorable to the party who destroyed it

Nature of Case: Trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Computers, emails